The Cloverfield hype began for me when I went to see a screening of Transformers at the Arclight Theatre on Sunset in Hollywood one fateful day in July. The opening trailer for the film was a quaint little teenage/young adult comedy which seemed to be shot by a Hi-8 camera for about six bucks and a Wawa Italian hoagie. My thought process went into overdrive, and I immediately thought to myself, "Wait a second. This is Transformers. A mega blockbuster special effects extravaganza with giant robots destroying downtown Los Angeles. Surely they must be kidding promoting an indie comedy that isn't even shot well with this film right?" I immediately knew something was up. And then it happened. Downtown New York has a major explosion as the teenagers stand on top of a roof. Shit has officially went down. There is a cry from someone that seemed to say "It's alive! And it's huge!" The head of the Statue of Liberty flies by, and after that it fades to black, with no title. Everyone in the theatre simultaneously says, "What the fuck was that?" and "I am seeing that! I do not care."
I was intrigued as well, but from more of a stand point of wondering if this was going to the next Blair Witch Project. For the next few months, more and more people became aware of this mysterious trailer, and just wanted to know one thing; What the hell is this monster? Or is it a monster? No one knew, but everyone was speculating. I had huge doubts for the film mainly because of the hype that was being poured into it. My main concern was that once they revealed the monster, what was the point of the rest of the film going to be? The city getting destroyed? Ive seen that before. People getting killed? Ditto. Was there going to be a story? Would I give a shit about the characters? I had felt that once the monster was revealed, it wasn't going to live up to the hype. And then it would become Blair Witch again. Alot of pissed off people in the theatre, and many angry patrons and reviews. Well when I finally saw it, I was happy to report. It was a lot better than I had expected.
The story begins with Ron who has taken a job in Japan as the vice president of some company (the name escapes me at the moment) and his going away party that his brother and his friends have thrown for him in his Manhattan apartment. Every major player in the film is introduced at this point that has relevance in Ron's life. His brother Jason, Jason's girlfriend Lily, Rob's best friend and the unfortunate cameraman for the night Hud, and his crush/best friend Beth whom he had recently spent his first night together with. Everything seems fine until an earthquake happens. No one has any clue whats going on. And then the infamous explosion and Statue of Liberty head scene occurs. Shit has gone down.
Film School: This is the closest thing that a Hollywood mainstream film will essentially ever come to an experimental film. The film is shot with the sole purpose of making you feel like you had found this tape with footage and are seeing it unedited for the first time. The film does an excellent job of inter splicing Rob and Beth's first date mixed in with the chaos of whats happening within the confines of the city. (Hud realizes that he forgot to change the tape when he started recording during the party)Through this first person perspective, the audience feels that they are with the characters and feel the chaos and the insanity of what is happening to them at this period of time. Since it is handheld, it is extremely shaky and motion sickness is a slight possibility much like with Blair Witch. But because of this technique, it make the proceedings all the more real.The terror is real in this film, and none of it is forced upon the viewer. There are slight subtle references of the 9/11 tragedy found within the film. The chaos, the unknown factor, the will to survive and band together, and a great fear of a strong enemy.
It follows the Jaws school of thought; the less you see of the monster, the scarier the film actually is. And it definitely holds true. You never get a full shot of the creature, so if you were looking for that, go somewhere else. This isn't the film for you. The origins of the story are completely irrelevant to this film. The film is about the trials and tribulations of friends and what they would do, in the face of danger for each other. Because the film spends fifteen of the eighty or so minutes of the film with character development, we feel sympathy rather than empathy toward the characters in danger. So many horror films give us characters we truly could care less about and because of the that, films like those always suffer. Not Cloverfield in this sense.
This is a scary film no doubt. Its creepy, and the monster is very much wonderfully done. This could have been a dumb popcorn film about something that runs rampant, destroys things, and that's that. But this film goes a little deeper than that. With the experimental style it chose, Cloverfield becomes something essential to see in the theatre just for the experience.
Fanboy: This monster tears shit apart! It doesn't fuck around at all! I seriously expected like nothing from this movie and what I got was a nice kick ass monster movie. Would I have liked to see it a little more? Sure why not, especially since the monster was done so well, and it owned everything in its path. The camerawork made me a little wussy but not so much as to ruin the experience all together.
Unlike other pansy American monsters from films like King Kong who whines like a bitch over a woman, and Godzilla...wait that's Japanese...ah whatever hes ours too, usually getting his ass kicked than coming back in the end to barely win his fights, we have the unnamed Cloverfield monster completely owning everything and everyone in his path. Its never really stopped.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!-----------
A fucking nuke doesn't kill it!!!
END SPOILER ALERT-----------
This thing kicked a ton of ass and ate people and the shitty army to breakfast. It never fucked around not once. There was never a back story to make it seem angry at anything, or have feelings or anything like that. It just woke up, got pissed off and destroyed shit, because it wanted to.
I propose something to JJ Abrams for the sequel. If you are going to stop this monster in another film, there's only one logical solution and I believe everyone knows what that is.
Overall: A pretty good, actually scary film that is meant to be seen in theatres, and will undoubtedly lose its impact on home theatre. This film isn't meant for everyone for those who want to be genuinely scared, its definitely worth it.
7/10-But worth a trip to the theatre.
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